Local market and exchange (Spain)

Bread, baked goods, agricultural products and eggs were and still are the source of small scale income for women at local markets. There were also exchanges of small surpluses, especially eggs, for things that the family needed.

As late as 1974 a woman from Galicia, who worked as a servant, put it thus: “I got the bed linen by swapping eggs, while I was still living with my mother. I would take half a dozen to the shop, or however many I got a month from our hens, and when I went into service, if there wee eggs for lunch, I would keep them to swap for clothes. When I had enough for a sheet or pillow I would take it”.